Author

Carol RHM

in Almost Diplomatic on Print, Diplomatic Incidents, Manila, Manila Food

Cheers to Gastrodiplomacy!

Ambassadors share musings on food and culture and their favorite dining spots in Manila

This article first appeared in the 10 October, 2021 issue of The Manila Bulletin.

There’s nothing quite like food when it comes to bringing people together and even sharing cultures. It may seem trite but there’s no point denying it: Food is a universal language. Here are six ambassadors in Manila sharing their personal favorites here in the Philippines and what we all need to know about their homeland’s food.

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in Almost Diplomatic on Print, Diplomatic Incidents, Personal Musings

Advice to the young: Some rules need not be broken

This article first appeared in the August 28, 2021 issue of The Manila Bulletin.

My paternal grandmother in the Danish side of my family was a model when she was younger. She died at the age of 96 in Copenhagen around five years ago. My father still loves to mention her during our phone calls. Maybe because he’s painfully aware of how fond I am of her even though we didn’t get to spend enough time together.

He also knows that one of the biggest compliments I ever received in my life was when, during a quick visit to see her in her home, she told everyone we looked like each other. I remember feeling so chuffed that day. “She is like you, yes,” my dad said once. “One time, she broke her hip and as the nurses carried her away to be examined, she screamed at them not to forget her face creams.”

I laughed, not really expecting my father to pick up on the details of my own vanity.

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in Almost Diplomatic on Print, Diplomatic Incidents

Hosts never eat first and why rushing never did me any good

This article first appeared in the August 28, 2021 issue of The Manila Bulletin.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been in a state of rushing. Rushing to school, rushing to finish a project. I was always in a hurry to grow up, to get a job. To run after sources and to finish my stories. My time as a TV reporter was a constant state of an adrenaline rush followed by a huge crash after a full day’s work. Then come the hours of feeling exhausted as I stared at the ceiling, hoping to fall asleep. In the morning, I wake up to my alarm, ready to have another go at my energy roller coaster.

I brought that way of life with me even as I left the broadcast industry. Often saying yes to so many things only to rush getting from one commitment to another. “I never run,” AA Patawaran, Manila Bulletin’s lifestyle editor, once told me. It was a balmy evening in Berlin and we were on our nth glass of port. “But what if you’re late for a flight?” I asked him. He told me no, not even. He was smiling but I knew he was serious.

AA never seems to be in a rush and that’s something that fascinates me. I’m always in a hurry and, more often than not, I often find myself in a pickle because of it.

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in Almost Diplomatic on Print, Diplomatic Incidents

At Home with German Ambassador to the Philippines Anke Reiffenstuel

This article first appeared in the August 7, 2021 issue of The Manila Bulletin.

Germany’s Ambassador Anke Reiffenstuel arrived in Manila back in August 2019. Tall, blonde, svelte, and with a warm air of sophistication, she had seven months to get to know the Philippines before the pandemic hit. She acknowledges that she’s quite lucky to have arrived when she did. She had a bit of time to lay the groundwork for some of their projects before the world went into a standstill.

NATURE’S CONVERGENCE A Buddy Bear, one of Berlin s most memorable symbols with a whaleshark painted on its stomach, welcomes people into the German ambassador’s home in Manila

A different challenge

The pandemic hasn’t been kind to people who love to socialize. For diplomats who are required to engage in socialization and build networks to be effective in their careers, the new normal has been quite the new, untamable animal. “It’s just not the same kind of atmosphere when you are talking, exchanging thoughts,” says Amb. Reiffenstuel. “The large part of what diplomats do in these meetings is catch the atmosphere, getting an idea of what’s going on in the margins of the conferences.”

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in Diplomatic Incidents, Expat Life, Personal Musings

Diplomatic Baggage: Brigid Keenan’s Memoir is a Timeless, Entertaining Read

I first picked up Brigid Keenan’s Diplomatic Baggage a few months after I got married and I’ve read the book quite a number of times since. Funny enough, it was my husband who told me about the book and we searched for it in almost every bookstore in Manila until I finally got my copy. It was my companion during the first few months of our posting. We were in Kuala Lumpur and I was treating it like a portable, inanimate friend until I met people who weren’t my husband’s colleagues. When we moved to Berlin, I picked it up again for another go. It’s the book I often recommend to people who want to learn more about diplomatic life at post.

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in Expat Life, Manila, Manila Food, Manila What to Do, Manila Where To Go

Column: Manila is Eager to be Loved

If you’ve been following me on my social media channels like Instagram, you prolly already know that I started a column with The Manila BulletinIt’s one of the major broadsheets in the country and I’m so happy to have space in their Lifestyle Section every Saturday. So if I haven’t been writing here much, you know where to find me. 😉 Here’s an excerpt from one of my columns – some things that I have been learning to love (again) in and about Manila.

Manila is eager to be loved

How the return to Manila from seven years of living in Kuala Lumpur and Berlin is teaching this diplomat’s wife how to find happiness wherever she finds herself

Toward the end of our time abroad for my husband’s diplomatic posting, I was often asked how I felt about going home. Whenever I said I looked forward to it, it was always met with disbelief. Surely, I must be joking. Did I not enjoy my time abroad?

I often assure people that I’ve savored every moment I get to spend in each city we move to, getting to play local for a few years. First, it was Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, then Berlin in Germany. It’s an immersion like no other but the life we chose is that of an adventure of packing and moving every few years. I guess knowing that your time in a place is limited makes you immerse yourself deeper into a place in a shorter span of time. You learn how to appreciate and live in every moment. This, so that when it’s time to leave, you don’t feel too bad or have too many regrets.

Live in the present and compare less 

“You’re always where you’re meant to be. You’re always in the best possible place,” a senior diplomatic official once told me. It’s the best way to teach someone to be truly happy wherever they are in the world. One’s happiness does rely heavily on disposition and attitude toward life. You can be in Paris, living in a fancy apartment yet still be the most miserable person if you’re someone who feels like you should be in New York instead.

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in Manila, Manila Food

Column: Tasting Notes & Menu from the Interview with Australian Ambassador Steven J. Robinson

In my recent column for The Manila Bulletin, I had the lovely opportunity to get to know Australian Ambassador to the Philippines’ Steven J. Robinson. We talked about wine and great food coming from his home country and how quality doesn’t always have to come with such a heavy price.

It was so refreshing to meet someone who truly loves wine but is also easygoing with it. There are no rules, no wrong answers – it’s about what you like, no matter the color or the price point of your drink. “So in the old days, people used to say that you could only drink white wine with chicken and fish,” he said. “And then you could only drink red wine with beef and lamb. That’s actually not true at all. You do what you want to do.”

I used to discriminate against screw-top wines. I feel like most of us have been conditioned to think that corked wines will always be better, fancier. Turns out that’s not always the case. Also, corked wines need more care when stored. We all know what happens to wine when the cork dries up – one never has that problem with screw-tops. I learned so many things that evening but I think I’ll have to save them for another post.

For now, let me fulfill my promise at the end of my column, I’m sharing the wines and the food that we had and all the details about them – from price to where they’re available. Hopefully, these will be helpful for your media noche plans!

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in Almost Diplomatic on Print, Diplomatic Incidents, Uncategorized

Column: How did I even get here? And other questions I often ask myself

If you’ve been following me on my social media channels like Instagram, you prolly already know that I started a column with The Manila BulletinIt’s one of the major broadsheets in the country and I’m so happy to have space in their Lifestyle Section every Saturday. So if I haven’t been writing here much, you know where to find me. 😉 Here’s an excerpt from the first column I wrote for the paper – an introduction to Almost Diplomatic and how I ended up here. 

A diplomat’s wife and her stories from this world of envoys and their spouses or their dogs

“This fork is for your salad course, this one’s for dessert,” I found myself telling a woman not much younger than I was at one of Kuala Lumpur’s swanky restaurants. We were invited to have afternoon tea and the waitstaff were kind enough to bring out more cutlery than necessary when we asked for them. Their sole purpose was to enrich our discussion. It was 2016 and I’d been abroad for two years as a diplomat’s wife. My companion, a fellow freelance journalist, was interested in things that I should know for my said role. It’s how our conversation on proper dining started. She looked at me inquisitively. “How do you know all these? Do you eat like this at home? Do they teach you these in school?”

At home in Berlin with Juancho (@juanchothecorgi)

I admitted that I merely picked them up along the way, that I only brought out all manner of cutlery when we would host people at home and that no–they didn’t teach you these things in journ school.

While protocol and etiquette have always been interesting, they’re things you have to either learn extensively or pick up along the way. Goodness knows I only learned the difference between wine glasses three years prior to that conversation. I studied to be a journalist and while learning the difference between writing for print and broadcast, cutlery for formal dinners was never mentioned. Not all students end up in the diplomatic beat, after all.

Having a beer in one of Prague’s monasteries.

I grew up middle class and attended university to become a journalist. It’s all I ever wanted to be while growing up, watching TV with a hairbrush in my hand as my microphone, imitating Christiane Amanpour. “I’ll be her but with better hair,” eight-year-old me once said. I wasn’t brought up to be overly polite, you see. I was brought up to be competitive and do well in the career I would eventually choose. Classic Asian-tiger parenting.

I’ve been lucky to meet people from all walks of life and learn from them as a journalist, as a diplomat’s wife, and even as just a woman with her dog, waiting for the train from Charlottenburg to Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin.

A year after graduating, I found myself covering foreign affairs for a local English news channel. I’d interview diplomats about their time and work here as well as senior foreign ministry officials, usually about our country’s maritime and territorial disputes—hot topics during that time. At night, I attended diplomatic events with my fellow reporters where I learned through observation. Things like the difference between appetizers and hors d’oeuvres, why I shouldn’t have offered my hand to the Iranian ambassador, and the acceptable volume of one’s laugh. Spoiler alert: Mine went way over than what was pleasant to the ears.
8 Myths About the Life of a Diplomatic Spouse

There are fun events but that’s NOT the ONLY thing we do.

A former foreign minister loved to tell me to take the Foreign Service Officers’ (FSO) exam and his deputies often echoed his sentiments. I did toy with the idea but never got around to it, knowing that leaving journalism would be rather heartbreaking for me. Looking back, I’m glad I didn’t. Goodness knows how much trouble I’d cause as I had this terrible habit of not knowing when to stop talking. Thank goodness that’s under control now.

Continue reading Almost Diplomatic over at The Manila Bulletin

in Expat Life, Manila, Manila Food

Samba: A taste of Peru at the Shangri-la The Fort (Manila)

It’s been a while since I raved about a restaurant and it’s never too late to get back on that horse. Last Friday wasn’t my first time at the Shangri-la in BGC nor was it my first time in its Peruvian restaurant Samba. However, it was still every bit as wonderful as the first time I went. And that’s something about a restaurant that gets people to keep coming back – consistency.

It was October 1st and Samba was reopening after a bit of rest during the latest restrictions. Finally, we can dine in restaurants again. I sat with my friend Debbie at the al fresco section, a few feet away from the hotels (gorgeous) pool. The weather was mild with a bit of wind and just a sprinkle of humidity in the air. I didn’t even get to use my humungous abanico which now goes wherever I do. It was absolutely perfect for a night out.

Dinner at Samba

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in Expat Life, Manila, Manila What to Do, Uncategorized

Recycling in Manila: From Single Use Plastic to the Victims of Decluttering

By now, almost everyone has heard of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) report on climate change. If you haven’t, click here to watch a quick summary. Long story short, we’re the problem. And, there’s just too many of us. For a while now, I’ve been quietly looking for and learning ways to help out by lessening my emissions. I also have some mentors who have been so helpful in this journey of sustainably lowering my carbon footprint without sacrificing too much of the lifestyle I enjoy or making it too inconvenient.

Recycling and cutting down on our plastic waste is one of the most straightforward ways to lower our emissions. While I do try to avoid single-use plastic, there are some establishments both here and abroad, that still use them for their packaging. At the same time, it’s quite difficult to give up on the convenience it brings. Let’s be honest here.

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